Page 191 of Knot So Lucky

Apparently, existential questions about competitive racing dynamics aren't her area of expertise.

I sigh, closing the leaderboard and turning off the diagnostic screen.

Tomorrow, we'll run more tests. Implement additional security. Try to trace the sabotage to its source.

Continue training and preparing for the next race despite all the chaos swirling around us.

But tonight, I just sit in the quiet garage with my kitten, wondering who I can trust and how much danger we're actually in.

Or worse.

CHAPTER 37

Coffee, Code, And Quiet Threats

~ADRIAN~

The Binary Grounds looks like any other coffee shop from the outside.

Exposed brick, industrial lighting, the obligatory chalkboard menu listing drinks with pretentious names and even more pretentious prices. Located three blocks from the main paddock, it caters to the racing crowd during competition season and tech workers year-round.

But I know better.

The basement houses one of the best unauthorized server farms in the city, run by a collective of hackers who maintain strict neutrality in exchange for access and protection. The private booths upstairs have Faraday cage shielding and dedicated fiber connections. And the owner—a former cyber security specialist who got tired of corporate politics—doesn't ask questions about what customers do on those connections.

It's perfect for what I have planned.

Aurora walks beside me, dressed in her usual baggy clothes and masculine presentation. Rory Lane to anyone watching, butI see Aurora underneath, the Omega who's comfortable in both presentations depending on context and safety.

"A coffee shop?" she asks, one eyebrow arched skeptically. "This is your idea of a date?"

"Trust me," I say, holding the door open. "Tesoro, this is going to be better than any fancy restaurant."

The endearment slips out in Italian—my mother's language, spoken when emotions run too close to the surface for English to contain them properly.

Aurora's lips quirk into a smile that she tries to hide, following me inside.

The smell hits immediately—fresh-ground coffee beans mixing with the electronic ozone scent of overworked servers. A few patrons scattered throughout, most hunched over laptops with the particular intensity of people doing work they'd rather not explain publicly.

I guide Aurora toward the back, where the private booths offer both seclusion and the technical infrastructure I arranged earlier.

The booth is exactly as I requested: multiple screens already set up, power strips, dedicated fiber connection, and a stack of vintage race strategy notebooks that cost me a small fortune to acquire at auction. The leather seats are worn but comfortable, and someone has already delivered the espresso I pre-ordered—proper Italian, not the American swill most places try to pass off as coffee.

"Oh," Aurora breathes, taking in the setup. "Oh, this is perfect."

The genuine delight in her voice makes warmth bloom in my chest.

"Sit," I encourage, sliding into the booth beside her—close enough that our thighs touch, that I can smell her smoke-and-vanilla scent mixing with mine. "We're going to go throughtelemetry data and compare your gut-feel racing lines to what the numbers actually show."

Her eyes light up with the kind of excitement most people reserve for expensive gifts or romantic gestures.

But this is romance in my language.

Shared technical work, diving deep into the details that most people find tedious, finding intimacy in collaborative problem-solving.

I pull up the telemetry from her last race, overlaying it with the ideal racing line calculations that our AI systems generated.

"See here?" I point to Turn Seven. "Your instinct is to apex slightly earlier than optimal. But look—" I zoom in on the data, "—that early apex costs you about point-three seconds on corner exit because you can't get back on the throttle as aggressively."